It may have only been the hardier of the Stamford Bridge faithful who might have backed Chelsea to bloody the nose of title-chasing Arsenal at the Emirates on Tuesday evening, but few could have expected the utter humbling the team would experience by the time the final whistle blew.
After a frustrating trip to Wembley saw them knocked out of the FA Cup after a promising performance against Manchester City, Mikel Arteta's side ripped through Mauricio Pochettino's juvenile squad like a hurricane - and handed them their biggest-ever defeat against their London rivals.
Pochettino may have called upon his players to prove that they could still impress without their season's lynchpin Cole Palmer, out of the squad due to injury, but the showing the Blues served up only seemed to underscore that the former Man City player's individual performances have often patched over the glaring errors that have dogged the side throughout their campaign.
Tuesday evening in north London exposed the worst of them. A woeful lack of clinical edge - with Nicolas Jackson the funky-finishing focal point - from the forwards and a jittery hesitancy at the back. An unfocused and casual midfield stuffed with players struggling to live up to their £100million-plus price tags. Plus, the ability to look entirely without a game plan, a criticism which must fall at the feet of Pochettino himself.
'Three days ago, fantastic game, great performance, deserved to go to the final,' the Argentine manager summarised after the whistle. 'Today, you can use any words to describe our performance. Our standards are not sustained for the bad days.
'When we have bad days, we are so bad. When we are good, we are capable of everything.’
Cutting a wearied figure, the end note was as much positivity as a head coach who believed his players simply 'gave up' could muster. Languishing in ninth, Chelsea are staring down the barrel of another record-breaking season.
In an ironic twist the Blues' London rivals should find delicious, it was former player Kai Havertz - the provider of Arsenal's third and fourth on the night - who confirmed Chelsea's new club record of most goals conceded, supplying number 55 and 56.
Ben White's second goal set the marker at 57 - with six games left to play. The club's previous record of 55 was hit in the 1994-95 campaign, and two seasons later, in 1996-97.
On the heels of recording their second-lowest Premier League finish last year, evidence of defensive imperfections is just one of a number of damning stats which highlight how far the club's 'project' may have to go before their high-risk strategy of buying ultra-expensive untested players pays off.
As things stand, Chelsea's coterie of long-contracted junior starlets are almost all strangers to success. Certainly on English soil - one particularly unedifying example is that of World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez, who has won just 14 league games in a mammoth 46 appearances.
Any gains since last season have been marginal. As per Stats Perform, at this stage of the campaign - 32 games in - the Frank Lampard-led side had lost 13 games, their joint-second highest amount in Premier League history. This season, Pochettino's side has lost just two fewer, their tally of 11 with six matches to go only bettered (or should that be worsened?) on four occasions.
A small crumb of comfort for Chelsea supporters comes in the form of where that loss rate puts them in perspective this season. Only six teams have lost fewer games than the Blues this term - but for a team of Chelsea's former stature, that's likely to only provide a slim consolation.
As expected, then, is the west London side's points haul. Seemingly rooted to ninth place, Chelsea's one-step-forward-one-step-back season has seen them inexplicably drop points and fail to improve their standing when conditions seem favourable to leapfrog their rivals.
This inability to build on strong performances was most recently exemplified by chasing their miraculous smash-and-grab win against Manchester United with an under-cooked 2-2 draw with Sheffield United.
Switching off against the relegation-threatened side late on, Pochettino's side squandered their lead and retreated from Bramall Lane with the solitary point.
With 47 claimed at this stage in the campaign, Chelsea remain someway off their worst-ever season of 1993-94, which saw them on just 38 points at this stage of the season, but comfortably within the realm of their weaker terms.
More damning is the side's away record, with the club afflicted with the same travel sickness that blighted last year's battlers.
Humiliation at the Emirates marked the seventh defeat that Chelsea have suffered away from the relative safety of Stamford Bridge, accounting for a whopping 63 per cent of their cumulative losses this season.
At this stage of last year's campaign, the Blues had lost eight matches - and with three more away fixtures to play against Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, and Brighton, they could still match last year's away record of 10 matches lost.
Nor can Pochettino's side confidently cling to their home record. Despite seeing out their last four Premier League ties unbeaten in west London and losing only four matches at Stamford Bridge since the start of the season, the team is breaking new ground in goals conceded - another symptom the youthful side's inability to see out a match with a clean sheet.
Chelsea have done that just six times this season - against Luton, Fulham, Everton, and Sheffield United at home - and conceded a history-making 25 goals on the Stamford Bridge turf. With meetings against Tottenham, West Ham, and Bournemouth still to come, it's hardly a stretch to suggest the number will only increase.
In a week where Blues icon John Terry was inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame, evidence of such threadbare defending was brought into sharp relief as the former captain reminisced about his own record-breaking season.
'I'm going to upset a couple of people here, but I think that season was as good as the Invincibles season for Arsenal,' Terry said of the 2004-05 campaign, which saw Chelsea set the high-water mark of fewest goals conceded - shipping just 15. 'They drew an awful lot of games.
'I don't think it's a record that's ever going to be beaten if I'm honest,' he added.
History will tell if Terry is proven right. But as things stand, it's safer to say it could be a long, long time before his former club can dream of delivering a season close to those he experienced at the pinnacle of Chelsea's former glories.